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by Steadfxst



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Angst, Booty Calls, Drinking to Cope, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 19:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15516513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steadfxst/pseuds/Steadfxst
Summary: Jim lies awake at night, wondering if he's making a difference when all anyone seems to do is scream at him or ignore him day in and day out. Looking for solace, he calls Jake.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [lowercasemad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowercasemad/gifts).



Jim would be lying if he said he didn’t get some sense of satisfaction from pissing off the press wrangler to such a degree that she called him out by name, repeatedly. He hadn’t gotten an answer to any of his questions—not that he was expecting any—but he had gotten under her skin. It was a moral victory, and victories for the press were scarce these days. Jim was happy to take what he could get.

Still though. The ridicule he was constantly on the receiving end of was something else. Something that wouldn’t necessarily phase him in the moment—he was becoming numb to it in the moment—but would bother him later. Later when he’d sit down for dinner or when he was lying awake in bed. The sounds of screams from wranglers and red state voters would play back in his mind, over and over again.

Jim would hear their hateful words and disgusting chants on a loop, until he would give up the ghost of trying to sleep and would go into his kitchen in his pajamas and pour himself something to drink until his mind was quieter. Until their voices were nothing more than a prickle at the back of his mind.

Sleepy and warm all over, Jim blinks, contemplates his next move. He should go to sleep. He’d have to be up in a few hours anyway. He pours himself another drink of something amber while he mulls over his options. He could watch T.V. and fall asleep on the couch. He could go to bed. He could—

He could call Jake.

Jim finds himself dialing before he can think better of it. He takes another sip while he waits for the call to go through. 

He counts six rings while he waits, and he’s about to cut the call short before he’s sent to voicemail when Jake picks up.

“Jim?”

“Sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

He hears sheets rustling.

“No, you didn’t. I was up.”

Jake clears his throat as though that would dislodge the sleepy quality it had adopted.

“What’s up?” Jake asks.

He hears a door close. He probably didn’t want to wake his wife. Jim pours himself another glass and wanders back to his bedroom.

“Nothing. I just—I couldn’t sleep.”

He turns on his bedside lamp, puts his glass on a coaster, and climbs back into bed, pillows propped up behind him.

“I saw what happened today. It’s—it’s not right, how they treat you.”

“I’m fine, Jake.”

Jake doesn’t say anything after that, doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie he just told. Why would he be calling Jake at 3:30 in the morning if everything was “fine”?

Jim reaches for his drink and takes a sip. The ice clinks against the glass. He wonders if Jake heard it.

“Do you want me to come over?” Jake asks.

“You have to be up as early as I do.”

“I’ll bring an overnight bag.”

“Jake.”

“Give me twenty minutes. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Jim isn’t sure how Jake makes it to his house so damn fast, but he does. If he drove the speed limit, it should’ve been at least closer to the half an hour mark.

“Hey,” Jake says when he opens the door in his bathrobe.

His grey hair is free of product, and it looks so soft in the pre-dawn light. He’s got bags under his eyes that somehow only accentuate their deep, sad look. Jake smiles a little, and Jim ignores the pang in his chest as he ushers him inside before anyone could see and get suspicious.

Jim doesn’t waste time with pleasantries, and he feels a little guilty about it. For now, he pushes it aside; Jake knows why he’s here. 

Jake sets his bag on the floor by the door and toes his slippers off. Jim puts his glass down and walks over to him to kiss him.

Jake pulls away, slightly.

“How much have you had?” he asks.

Jim watches him run his tongue over his lips, tasting the alcohol Jim had been drinking before he arrived.

“Not nearly enough,” Jim says before kissing him again.

He puts his hands on Jake’s hips and steers him backwards towards the bed where Jake sits down and falls back, allowing Jim to climb over him and press their bodies together. Jake reaches his hands up and runs them soothingly through his hair. It’s gentle in a way that makes this all too real. To be gentle, here and now, would be to acknowledge that he needed gentle, that he needed to be soothed. It would be admitting weakness. He couldn’t afford another loss right now.

Jim grabs Jake’s hands and pins them to the bed by his head, deepening the kiss until it was more teeth than anything else.

“Jim,” Jake says.

“Stop it,” Jim says, kissing— _biting_ —down his neck to his still-clothed collarbone.

“Jim, no marks. The cameras.”

“Fuck cameras.”

Jim lets go long enough to pull their shirts off, and then he goes back to touch and mouth at the newly exposed skin there. Jim feels Jake get hard under him, and he thrusts his hips against Jake’s.

“Jim?” Jake breathes.

He knows what Jake is asking. He reaches into his bedside table and turns off the light.

* * *

Jim nearly breaks his phone when his alarm goes off two hours later. He squeezes it in his hand until the edges bite into his fingers and palm before hitting snooze. Then another alarm goes off, and he remembers:

Jake is still here.

He turns over and sees the back of Jake’s head on the other pillow. His hair is sleep tousled. He follows the line of his body where his lower half is hidden by a sheet pulled up over himself haphazardly. Jake reaches for his phone and hits snooze, too.

He turns over.

“Morning,” he whispers.

“Morning,” Jim says.

Jake gives him a sleepy smile. 

Then Jim notices Jake’s chest.

“Fuck.”

Jake follows his line of sight.

“My suit will cover it,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

Jim swallows.

He was an asshole. A complete fucking asshole. Sure the cameras wouldn’t see the hickeys on Jake’s chest, but his wife sure as hell would. And sure Jen was understanding and extremely permissive, but how would she feel about how he’d marked up her husband?

“I’m sorry,” he says over a lump in his throat.

“Hey, come here,” Jake says.

Jim does. Jake kisses him again, slow and filled with the tenderness Jim had denied him last night.

“I’m sorry,” Jim repeats.

“I know.”

He moves a little lower to press his face into Jake’s chest, allowing for Jake to wrap his arms around him. He’s thankful Jake can’t see the tears welling in his eyes. He tries once more to get the words out. To get the words _right_.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Jake says. “I know.”

Jim sighs in relief.


End file.
